Chapter 189: Exploading the Bridges

The first bridge creaked under their weight. Resin-sealed wood and bone flexed with the slow movement of the sulfuric water beneath.

Pale lights on the outer platforms flickered as the group advanced. Gold light from the Sovereign Domain spread ahead of them across the lake surface, turning the yellow-green water briefly clearer wherever it touched.

Lucy walked at Levi's right, still carrying a residual warmth from the private moment on the shore. "They are very quiet for merchants. I expected shouting about prices by now."

Isha's slime formed a thin protective sheen over her boots as she stepped carefully. "Maybe they are calculating the discount for immediate surrender."

Vespera's living eyes tracked the figures on the nearest platform. "Three primary negotiators. Multiple armed divers under the outer platforms. They are ready to cut the bridges if talking fails."

Serakel's third eye glowed. "The main market floor is deeper in. Floating halls connected by low, covered walkways. Everything is designed to be collapsed or flooded."

The Reverend Mother Superior looked at the steaming water on either side of the narrow bridge and sighed. "I dislike every part of this architecture."

The pit-wyrm hybrid followed with surprising care, testing each section of bridge before committing its full weight. Its copper-and-gold eyes remained fixed on the watching figures.

Levi kept a steady pace. The golden barrier expanded just enough to make the air above the water shimmer.

'They will open with offers. Then with veiled threats. Then with the water. The pattern never changes.'

When the group stepped onto the first wide platform, a small party of cloaked figures was already waiting. The central one was a tall, androgynous demon with smooth gray skin and eyes like polished coins. Two heavily armed divers flanked them, still dripping lake water. Several more merchants stood farther back, hands visible and empty.

The coin-eyed negotiator inclined their head a precise degree. Not a bow. Not yet.

"Sovereign of Neverland," they said. The voice was pleasant and carefully neutral. "Word of the Spires, the Choir, the Maw, and the Bazaar reached us in sequence. The Drowned Market acknowledges the change in the deeper currents. We are prepared to offer substantial and ongoing tribute in exchange for continued self-governance under your distant authority."

Lucy muttered, "There it is. The polite version of 'please go away.'"

Isha whispered, "Ask about the chest. I still want the chest."

Levi stopped a few paces from the negotiator. Gold light pooled around his boots on the wet planks.

"The time for distant authority is over," he said. "The Drowned Market will kneel the same way every other free court has knelt. Open your ledgers. Open your lower halls. The mark will settle, and the Market will continue its business under new ownership. That is the only offer."

The coin-eyed negotiator's expression did not change, but something in the set of their shoulders tightened. "We are prepared to be generous. Extremely generous. There is no need for the same methods used on the Spires."

Vespera's voice was cool and carrying. "The Spires also believed that."

Serakel added mildly, "They were incorrect."

The negotiator glanced at the five women, at the hybrid that took up a large portion of the platform, and at the gold light that refused to fade. Calculations moved visibly behind the coin-colored eyes.

"Perhaps a demonstration of good faith on both sides," they tried again. "A temporary arrangement while terms are finalized. The Market has resources the other courts never possessed. Information. Rare materials. Bindings that even the old witches paid for."

Levi's internal voice was flat.

'Still bargaining. Predictable.'

"Kneel," he said.

The word landed with the full weight of the Sovereign Domain behind it. Gold light flared across the platform. The two armed divers shifted their stance. Several merchants farther back took careful steps toward the edges of the platform, where the water waited.

The coin-eyed negotiator held still for a long moment. Then they smiled with no warmth at all.

"I was afraid you would say that."

They raised one hand in a small, elegant gesture.

The outer bridges behind the group detonated in controlled bursts of resin and bone. Sections of floating walkway collapsed into the sulfuric water with heavy splashes. At the same time the two divers moved, and pale shapes broke the surface of the lake on three sides of the platform—long, eel-like bodies with too many fins and jaws that opened sideways.

Lucy's blade was already clear. "Finally."

Isha's slime exploded outward in wide nets. "I told you the water would be involved!"

Vespera's northern cold snapped across the nearest section of lake, flash-freezing the surface and trapping two of the eel-creatures mid-lunge. Serakel's force blades severed the weapons from the divers' hands before they finished their first step. The Reverend Mother Superior raised a clean dome of holy-gold light that made the next wave of lake-beasts scream and recoil.

Levi walked straight toward the coin-eyed negotiator as the platform erupted into motion. The golden barrier burned a clear path. The negotiator tried to step back and found the hybrid already blocking the rear exit, jaws open in a low, eager growl.

Gold light gathered in Levi's hand.

"Last chance was the moment I arrived," he said.

The negotiator's coin-colored eyes widened. They dropped toward the wet planks in a sudden, graceful kneel, but the claim was already moving.

[Expending 4,000 Aether]

[Sovereign Domain: Direct Claim]

Gold light sank into the negotiator without resistance. Their body shuddered once. When they lifted their head again the coin-colored eyes carried thin gold rims.

[Target: Drowned Market Negotiator]

[Desire Level: 0% → 100%]

[Claim Complete]

"Master," they said, voice no longer neutral.

Around the platform the remaining merchants and divers followed in a spreading wave of dropped weapons and kneeling forms as the Sovereign Domain swept outward. The eel-creatures in the water fled or floated belly-up where Vespera's ice and the Reverend Mother's light had caught them. The collapsed bridges stopped mattering once the gold mark claimed the platform itself.

Lucy wiped her blade clean on a discarded cloak and looked mildly disappointed. "That was shorter than I hoped. They folded the moment the water tricks failed."

Isha reeled her slime back in, already peering toward the deeper floating halls. "The tribute chest is still in there somewhere. I can feel it."

Vespera's living eyes met Levi's for a brief moment. "The Market is yours. The last free court on the old maps is gone."

Serakel glanced across the connected platforms, where more figures were already kneeling as the gold light reached them. "The ledgers and submerged vaults will need securing. After that, Neverland's independent powers are effectively finished."

The Reverend Mother Superior looked at the yellow-green water lapping against the platform edges and sighed. "I am still burning these boots when we leave."

Levi looked down at the kneeling negotiator, then out across the floating expanse of the Drowned Market as gold light continued to spread from platform to platform, hall to hall.

'The final name on the list. The underground has run out of free courts.'

He spoke clearly, voice carrying across the water.

"Open every hall. Open every ledger. The Drowned Market answers to the Sovereign of Neverland from this moment. Anyone who objects may do so once. After that the water can have them."

The newly claimed negotiator bowed lower. "It will be done, Master."

The last free court of Neverland began to rewrite itself under the gold mark while the sulfuric lakes steamed quietly around it.

The Sovereign and his five women stood on the captured platform and watched the final independent power of the underground fall into place.